Chapter Fifty

Complications.

“I’m sorry. Could you please take turns?” Nellie sighed as she looked at the group of people in front of her. “I don’t mean to be rude; I just want time to process one disaster before the next one of you decides to make it worse.”

“She’s a guest; she can go first,” Dar shamelessly dropped Hellena into the pot and steped back. The rest of them quickly pick up on Dar’s lead.

The holographic representation of Hellena anxiously looks around at them in shock.

Apparently, this is not how things are done in the Confederacy. Nellie would say that sounds refreshing, but that would be a lie. She loved her crazy band, no matter how quickly things had gone to hell.

“Captain Hellena, there is a problem?” Nellie asked.

“Queen Bonne Chance, I regret to have to ask for a rescue.” Hellena blushes in furious embarrassment.

“Which one of the idiots got in trouble?” Crush asked.

“Me,” Hellena replied. “My father ordered me removed from command, I objected, and now we have two ships lost; all the rest are disabled, including Birdsong. He will no doubt send Imperial Line ships to collect me… and I will vent the ship before I allow me or my loyal crew to be taken.”

“How can I rescue you?” Nellie asked. “I can’t repair your ships in Maiusarian Space, but even if I did, where would you go?”

“In that, I hoped to follow my brother’s example,” Hellena said, red-faced.

“What did your brother do?” Nellie asked.

“Uh, that bit was on his turn,” Cara said helpfully as she pointed at Crush.

“Crush?” Nellie asked.

“One of the Falling Waters kids joined the Imperium with another of the hostages,” Crush said. “He’s a good kid if a bit of an Edwards. The girl, Marie, is a solid worker, too.”

“Did that cause this?” Nellie asked Hellena.

“No,” Hellena shook her head. “It was a separate matter. It is a bit of a long story…”

“Then skip it,” Nellie said. “What exactly do you want?”

“Asylum,” Hellena said. “For me and my people.”

“How many people?” Nellie asked.

“Not many are left,” Hellena said, her eyes flashing with anger. “Only about two hundred and fifty or so.”

Nellie thought quickly. That would almost double the number of flesh and blood members of the Imperium, and they would not necessarily be loyal to her.

It was a risk.

“I need a guarantee you and your people would be loyal,” Nellie said.

“I can provide that,” Hellena said. “The Imperial Line, with the Ten Suns, intend to attack in four days, not ten. More than that, we will fight the Ten Suns ourselves if we can get our ships up and running.”

Remy stepped forward and passed Nellie a datapad that she read via data-burst.

“I won’t make you fight your own family,” Nellie said calmly. “Very well. I need people right now. Turn on me, however, and I will make sure you die before I do. Understand?”

“You will not regret this,” Hellena grinned fiercely.

“Let’s hope none of us do,” Nellie sighed. “Lucy, do we have anyone free to go get them?”

“Vicky has been wanting to try out the jump transition,” Lucy replied. “And the Sparklight will make any Imperial Line who arrive during recovery hesitate.”

“Great, can you ask her to go and pick up our new recruits?” Nellie asked.

“Consider it done,” Lucy said happily.

“Next,” Nellie said.

Crush stepped forward.

“What else could you possibly have done?” Nellie asked, making Crush laugh nervously.

“I thought a bit of good news might be welcome,” Crush smiled smugly. “I acquired training materials from the Sagacity. They are the best there is, apparently.”

“Sagacity Training Modules?” Hellena gaped. “They are the best in fifty jumps!”

“I got twenty-nine of them,” Crush grinned. “On a side note, Berenice is a hell of a trader; we should start actually doing that. If she had more time, I think she would have owned a couple of those stations.”

“Noted,” Nellie laughed, “Thank you.”

Baz opened his mouth and fell over.

“How did a nanite-infused synth even manage to get drunk?” Remy asked acidically.

“Effort!” Baz cried from the floor.

“On that note, what about this system?” Nellie asked the two remaining expedition members.

“The system is kind of a dump,” Dar said with a shrug. “One habitable world.”

“Agriculture base, sparsely populated, and conditions down there are terrible.” Salem took over. “Some ten thousand in all, and they all need everything. That black port had been there for generations…”

“You have something,” Nellie knew that look. “Go on.”

“Well, we do need people, and they need a lot of help.” Salem smiled. “Why not give it to them?”

“How many jump points?” Nellie asked.

“Three,” Salem replied. “One to here, one to an independent system, and one to nowhere.”

“Nowhere?” Nellie asked.

“Unexplored, opens to empty space with no other jump points mapped,” Salem replied. “A dead end.”

“That alone could be handy,” Nellie admitted. “Okay, we accept their planet joining the Imperium.”

“Yes!” Baz punched the air from his spot on the floor. “Long live the Pirate King!”

“No!”

“They will have to wait a few days, however,” Nellie sighed. “We have a lot to deal with.”

“First, Remy, the scrap I brought back is yours. I want more of those Jump-Ring installations as soon as possible.” Nellie said.

“Thank you, Your Highness.” Remy bowed, but she caught his smug look at the others.

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Oh, yay, they were competing already. Nellie was sure that wasn’t going to be a good thing in the long run, but for the moment, she was too busy to deal with it.

Ostie! She was saying that too often these days.

“Next, Salem I want you to detail some people to train the new recruits on the Liberty-class cruisers. We can’t spare them more than a day for it, so sooner is better.”

“I will get them drilled immediately,” Salem smiled. “I developed a training program for just this eventuality.”

“You did?” Nellie asked.

“It was intended for our own people, just in case we had to reassign people from the Rest during the battles ahead.” Salem nodded.

“The new recruits will not be nanited, so they will need a set of boosting gear and compatible armor. Cheape can help with that. She has the experience now.” Nellie suggested.

“I’ll get her working on it immediately.”

“Thank you.” Nellie smiled. “How long until he sobers up?”

Salem looked down at Baz, who was mumbling to himself.

“Naturally? About six hours.” Salem grinned. “But I can have him sober in two if need be.”

“Two hours?” Nellie asked.

“Two minutes,” Salem sighed. “He can clear it from his system; it’s just his first time being drunk, so he doesn’t want to.”

“Fine, let him get the full six hours then,” Nellie shook her head. “Pity he won’t get the hangover too.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Salem sighed. “He’ll suffer for this anyway.”

“For being drunk?” Nellie asked.

“For saying Cheape looked cute,” Dar chuckled. “Salem nearly threw him out an airlock.”

Nellie sent them all away, planning to meet again in seven hours.

Then she got on a shuttle Orb and headed back to the Rest. It was time to get a long overdue conversation out of the way properly.

She was meeting Lucy for coffee.

===<<<>>>===

“Ow!” Lucy snatched her hand back as Weasel glared at her.

“Sorry!” Nellie called, shocked. “He doesn’t normally bite women.”

“It’s fine, really,” Lucy said.

“Come and sit down, yeah?” Nellie gestured to the chair opposite her.

“This is a nice place,” Lucy said brightly. “When did it set up?”

“I did it as a distraction between all the other stuff,” Nellie said, feeling anxious and awkward again. “I really needed a solid supply of HyperDrive.”

“Well, it’s very nice,” Lucy smiled again.

Her new form was quite something. It still looked like the Lucy she knew, but there was something… natural about the way she looked now. The other body had always looked… made.

This, her natural form, was more real somehow, and it showed. Nellie could see the brittleness in the smile and the fear in Lucy’s eyes. That stuff never showed before.

“So…” Nellie said, floundering.

“Right!” Lucy said. “I wanted to talk, but now I just don’t know where to start.” Her jewel-like eyes teared up, shining like a constellation.

“How about you tell me what made you decide to go?” Nellie asked carefully. “Without telling me, I mean.”

“I know it sounds stupid,” Lucy said, fiddling with her napkin, “But I thought that I could just zip back and forth, you know? I mean, I figured a few hours there, and I could come back and report.”

“But it didn’t work out that way,” Nellie said.

“No. No, it didn’t. I got there, and all this stuff looked so familiar, but I had never seen it before.” Lucy shredded her napkin. “That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”

“We called it Deja-vu.” Nellie offered. “Seeing something new and feeling like you have seen it before. Of course, you probably had.”

“Once I was there and surrounded by all these amazing new things and people, I just… got caught up.” Lucy frowned. “That’s not true. I got all this attention, and everyone was so pleased to see me. That was new to me. Everyone always treated me like a weapon—other than you.”

“Did you ever consider staying?” Nellie asked, barely getting the words out.

“No. I can’t prove that, but no.” Lucy shook her head. “I was always coming back; I just thought that I could take a bit of time to figure out who I was, you know?”

“Honestly, no,” Nellie saw Lucy wince and hurried on, “Lucy, you had only ever known life as an AI, and now you learn that you are a different life form, not a made thing. So much had changed in such a short time… I don’t think I could ever understand that. Not really. But maybe I can understand it a bit. I’ve been trying to imagine it. I really have.”

“Thanks,” Lucy said miserably. “It was kind of amazing and awful at the same time.”

“I can at least understand how overwhelming it must have been,” Nellie said.

“About that,” Lucy sniffed. “I didn’t know my going would hurt you,” she was crying now, “If I had known that was even possible…”

“I know,” Nellie sighed. “It took a while for the anger to pass, but I know you would never intentionally hurt me.”

“I didn’t even know how distracted and messed up I had gotten until one of the silicate therapists explained it to me.” Lucy sighed.

“What do you mean?” Nellie frowned.

“Well, I thought I was such hot shit, little miss perfect. The reality was I was missing so much. I never even noticed Paren didn’t have a pilot! I didn’t want to believe the messages from you or Salem were really telling the truth, so I convinced myself you were exaggerating just to avoid the guilt over what I had done.”

Nellie got up and got Lucy some more napkins.

“Thanks,” Lucy laughed bitterly. “The nasty thing about perfect recall is being able to remember exactly how stupid and selfish I was being. And all the time, I felt so sure I was right.”

Nellie didn’t know what to say to that, so she just listened.

“So, then I get back and see it was all true,” Lucy was barely speaking now, her voice low and hollow. “I freaked out. Completely. I just wanted to get away and think, but the moment I did… when you left… I worried that was it. I had broken us forever.” Lucy wiped her eyes again. “I spent all night thinking and came up with a foolproof plan.”

“Not normally a great idea to plan things when you are upset,” Nellie said.

“Yup!” Lucy chuckled sadly. “I went and made it even worse. I took ships and stuff without thinking. I was convinced that if I made enough things, I could prove you still needed me.”

“That’s stupid,” Nellie sighed.

“Ouch,” Lucy said quietly.

“No, listen,” Nellie said seriously. “You need to understand this.”

“Okay,” Lucy said, but wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“I didn’t miss you for the things you can make or do,” Nellie said earnestly, “I was able to replace everything you did in weeks. Weeks. Things don’t matter. What I missed was YOU.”

Lucy looked up at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I missed having you to talk to and to lean on and kiss and joke with, tell me to sleep, and tell me things would be okay!” Nellie was shouting now. “I don’t give a fucking shit about your abilities! Putain! I love you. You the person, not the shit you do!”

“You do?” Lucy asked, smiling and crying at the same time.

“You want to make me happy, Lucy?” Nellie asked.

“Yes, more than anything!” Lucy said.

“Then just be here! Just be there and be you!” Nellie stopped, realizing she was still yelling. She sat back down in the chair, feeling exhausted.

“I promise,” Lucy whispered. “I promise if you forgive me, I’ll never do anything but that for the rest of my life.”

“I’ve already forgiven you,” Nellie wiped her own eyes. “If I hadn’t, we wouldn’t be sitting here.”

“You haven’t heard it all yet,” Lucy said timidly.

“Did you cheat on me?” Nellie asked, horrified.

“NO!” Lucy yelled. “It’s nothing like that.”

“Then what?” Nellie asked.

“I did something,” Lucy admitted. “Something big without asking. Before I promised not to.”

“What?” Nellie asked.

“I let the Silicates build an outpost on the planet,” Lucy said. “I even gave them the scrap ships to use for materials. That’s what happened to the rest of the ships I took. I made the dock, and I negotiated a deal with the Silicates.”

“What kind of deal?” Nellie asked.

“They get to build a base—a town, really—and it isn’t part of the Imperium like the Clutch settlement isn’t. In exchange, they agreed to help with training and technology and stuff. Plus, when the I.E.S. come, or we go after them, the Silicates will help—tech, ships, people, the whole thing.” Lucy wiped her eyes. “I thought if I could prove I could be useful and bring allies to the Imperium, I could convince you that you still needed me.”

“And now?” Nellie asked.

“Now I know it was stupid. I just needed to come and help you by actually being there. And I should never make allies without talking about it with you,” Lucy sighed. “Even if we disagree or argue. No more secrets.”

“Thank you,” Nellie said.

“So, am I forgiven?” Lucy asked. “I don’t mean it’s forgotten or anything, just that we can keep being together.”

“Yes,” Nellie sighed. “Of course you are. I know you meant well. That’s enough for me.”

“So, where do we go from here?” Lucy asked.

“Up to the apartment,” Nellie said.

“Really?” Lucy laughed.

“Don’t get excited,” Nellie said. “We aren’t having sex, but I am so tired, and I want to go to sleep holding the person I love.”

So, that is what they did. They held hands like teenagers all the way up in the lift tube, and they did not have sex. Nellie was firm about that.

They did not have sex before they went to sleep.

After they woke up, however… Nellie’s self-control failed her.

“Thank you all for coming,” Nellie said when they all reconvened. “We have a lot to do and very little time.”

“A little over three days,” Salem nodded.

“No.” Nellie shook her head. “We can’t guarantee they won’t bring the attack forward now that Hellena and her people have joined us.”

“So, we get ready to defend this system as soon as possible?” Crush asked.

“Not this time,” Nellie looked up, making sure she had their full attention. “We are going to attack the Imperial Line blockade. Tomorrow.”

The room exploded into chaos, and Nellie sat back and smiled with Lucy by her side.